Three individuals who funded luxury lifestyles in Majorca by cheating
investors of their life savings have been convicted of running a
multi-million pound Ponzi scheme.

The criminals, John Hirst, 61, his wife Linda Hirst, 62, and Richard Pollett, 70, ran an investment scheme from the island of Majorca. Over eight years they collected over £10m from friends and neighbours on the Mediterranean island by promising returns of 1.5pc per month. It later emerged half the money was siphoned off by the trio.

Mr Hirst conducted a similar fraud committed in the early 1990s when working as an insurance salesman in Yorkshire. On that occasion he was jailed after conning out-of-work miners out of their redundancy payments.

In the current case the prosecution, brought by the Serious Fraud Office, claimed John Hirst was driven by “greed”.

The prosecution claimed the parties never intended to invest money on behalf of their clients and did not care what the consequences their victimes suffered.

Instead of investing their clients’ money the Hirsts enjoyed a luxury lifestyle travelling first class, spending over £470,000 on developing their Majorcan home and gifting hundreds of thousands of pounds to family members.

John Hirst and Richard Pollett were described as the architects of the Gilher investment scam.

Hirst pleaded guilty. Pollett was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud. Linda Hirst was found guilty of money laundering. John Hirst’s son Daniel and Linda Hirst’s daughter, Zoe Waite, were acquitted of money laundering.